properly. She was a flood of everything and he could only watch.
“I hoped that by matching my guests, my victims as you keep putting it, that I would let loose some of the love I’ve had bottled up in me. That I’d see something I nurtured grow into that beautiful thing I lost. And somehow it would give me peace.”
“Emily,” he said softly.
“Don’t,” she whispered, and slung herself off the horse. She walked off into the glade just off the path where they had stopped, her boots crunching on the frozen, dead grass. “Don’t play or tease right now.”
He slowly dismounted, careful as he approached her. He let his hand close around her forearm, and then he rested his chin on the crown of her head. After a moment’s hesitation, she relaxed back against him, soft against him as she allowed hm to hold her.
“I would never tease you about something so important,” he said. “I didn’t know how much this matchmaking meant to you. I’m sorry if you felt I was too playful.”
“I lo—” She cut herself off and went stiff against his chest. “I like that you’re playful. Sometimes it was the only thing that saved me all these years. You must admit that I’m making a muck of everything, though.”
“The matches,” he said carefully.
She nodded, and he loved the slide of the crown of her head against his chin just before she glided from his arms and turned to face him. Like the intimacy of him holding her had become too much in that moment. “No one is connecting, no matter how I slide them around toward each other. The Mulberry twins hide out in their chamber half the time, Lady Abigail stands to the side, just watching everyone. Lady Thea despises Lord Allington so much that it seems to dominate any room they are in together. I cannot…fix it. Hence, I feel like a failure.”
He shook his head. “You have all the best intentions, and who could not adore you for them? But love isn’t a project that can be fixed. Trust me.”
Her brow wrinkled at that statement and he hurried to continue so she wouldn’t question him further on the topic. “You have set a handful of people into a room together and given them a reason to decide if they like each other. If they don’t, it’s because they don’t spark that feeling. It isn’t because you could have done something different.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she said with a sigh. “Leave it to you to give me good advice. I despise you for it.”
He couldn’t help but grin at that. When she said it, it lifted some of the tension between them and he felt like their friendship was back to normal.
“I will try to retreat as swiftly as possible back to being yet another mess you manage, my lady,” he said with a little bow. “I would not wish to shock you by becoming wise.”
Her smile faltered. “You’ve always been wise, Cav. And I’ve never seen you as a mess I managed.” She shifted. “But I suppose now is as good a time as any to address the final matter that is troubling me.”
His stomach sank at the way she worried her hands before her. “You and me?” he said, wanting to be the one who said it first.
She nodded slowly. “What happened between us yesterday.”
“Regrets?”
“No,” she said, so swiftly and firmly that it caught him off guard. Pleased him, but caught him off guard.
“Good,” he said softly. He moved toward her a long step and saw her tremble in response. Her gaze flitted over him in one long sweep, and she blushed. “Then what do you want to talk to me about?”
“Cav, I don’t think it’s wise if we repeat it, as wonderful as it was.”
The words were like arrows and they pierced his heart. But he had to pretend they meant nothing. After all, he had expected them. He had been aware of his love and desire for years. But if she felt any of it, if there was any chance for them, this was all new to her. She would fight it. Fear it. Analyze it.
“Why is that?” he asked. “I ask because I have a vested interest in repeating it.”
Her eyes went wide. “You—you want to take me to bed again?”
He shrugged one shoulder, making his reaction nonchalant when it most definitely wasn’t. “I very much enjoyed it, Emily. I have thought of very little else since. If we